Tag: 2018 (Page 2 of 5)

PRO MOD – ST. LOUIS 2018

September 24, 2018 / Todd Veney

At the second-quickest race in the history of the J&A Service NHRA tour (behind only this race last year), Jim Whiteley charged to the greatest run of his Pro Mod career, a 5.72 at more than 250 mph, to qualify a season-high sixth. It took a 5.77 just to make the cut, and two drivers – Todd Tutterow and, unfortunately, YNot’s Steven Whiteley – ran in the 5.70s and didn’t qualify.

“I absolutely should’ve run between a .71 and a .73 here,” said Steven, understandably disappointed. “I didn’t run good enough in the one [atmospherically] great session, which was a huge kick in the butt. This is probably the biggest disappointment of my whole year. I was a grouch all day Sunday when everybody else was racing and I wasn’t.”

Near-perfect conditions at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis, had the Pro Mods flying all weekend. After a single qualifying session, the entire field was packed within a tenth of a second and the bump was already down to a 5.82. Steven’s 5.80-flat Saturday morning put him 12th at the time but ultimately did him no good, and his subsequent 5.77 left him two-thousandths of a second too slow, 17th in a 16-car field.

Throw out Mike Castellana’s ridiculous 5.67 national record run, and the entire field was separated by just five-hundredths of a second – 5.72 to 5.77. Jim qualified 6th with a 5.729, but Mike Janis, who also ran a 5.72 (5.725), was all the way up in the No. 2 spot. In eliminations, Jim strapped a holeshot on PDRA star Jason Scruggs in the opening round and pulled away to a 5.80 to 5.82 win, then fell in the quarterfinals to eventual winner Stevie “Fast” Jackson, 5.74 to 5.79, for his best finish since he won Houston.

PSM – ST. LOUIS 2018

September 24, 2018 / Todd Veney

Seemingly outgunned against the top-ranked rider in Pro Stock Motorcycle all year, reigning NHRA world champ Eddie Krawiec, Joey Gladstone upset his heavily favored opponent, who handed over a first-round win with the most aggravating red-light of all, a -.001. “I was squatting behind the beams,” said Gladstone’s boss, Team Liberty leader Cory Reed. “They left, and I never even noticed the red-light in Eddie’s lane. I watched them go down the track and thought, ‘Dammit, we lost,’ and then somebody yelled, ‘Wait, he red-lighted!’ ”

Gladstone was outqualified by his much more accomplished foe by a full nine spots – No. 4 to No. 13 – but those numbers are somewhat misleading. Gladstone actually was right there alongside Krawiec in the 6.80s, 6.82 to 6.89, and the same numbers flashed on the scoreboards when they raced – 6.82 for Krawiec and 6.89 for Gladstone – but the win-light shone on Gladstone’s side of the track. “The bike is running better now than it would be if I was on it because of Joey’s weight – 135 pounds,” Reed said. “I weigh 150. In this class, that makes me a fat guy. It’s funny, the different emotions you feel watching someone else riding your bike, but it doesn’t bother me that much. It’s all about taking the next step, ’cause I’m tired of getting my ass kicked.

“Joey keeps making good passes,” Reed said, “and we keep learning more than we ever would if I was on there – the way the clutch works, way the tire hits, the way the wheelie bar works … when Joey’s on there, the weight transfer is what it’s supposed to be. When I’m on there, everything’s all wrong – it works right one time and doesn’t the next, and we never know why. When we get the new bike, it’ll be like 40 pounds lighter and we’ll be able to move weight around and have everything exactly the way we want it.”

PSM – READING 2018

September 17, 2018 / Todd Veney

Riding for Team Liberty, as he will all next year, Joey Gladstone drove Cory Reed’s bike into the middle rounds of eliminations at the Dodge Nationals in one of his first races as Reed’s replacement. He ripped the Tree down for a near-perfect .003 reaction time to put away Scotty Pollacheck, 6.90/192 to 6.93/192, but despite Pollacheck’s exalted status as a title contender, this was no upset – it was Gladstone who came from the top half of the field.

“I knew I couldn’t cut that Underdahl team any slack,” said Gladstone, who ran Underdahl power until his recent move to Team Liberty and knows as well as anyone how competitive those motorcycles can be. “That light felt almost too good. When I dropped the clutch, I actually looked up to see if his win light was on because I knew it had to be close.”

It was three-thousandths of a second from perfection and four-thousandths from a disastrous red-light, but Gladstone was right back in the .00s again in the quarterfinals, carding a nearly identical .008 reaction time opposite Hector Arana Jr. for another holeshot lead. But Arana was right there with a .018 and drove around him in the middle of the course for a come-from-behind 6.88/197 to 6.94/192 win and then went on to win the race and move to within three points of incoming leader Eddie Krawiec for the number one spot.

“Second round … that’s not really what we wanted, but you really can’t complain,” Gladstone said. “We did pretty good this weekend, and the bike’s running good. We’ll just see what happens over the next few races.”

PRO MOD – INDY 2018

September 9, 2018 / Todd Veney

The biggest race in all of drag racing, which two-time world champion Jim Whiteley won in his second of two championship seasons in Top Alcohol Dragster, wasn’t kind to the J&A Service/YNot Racing Pro Mod team this year. Teammate Annie Whiteley, who has reached at least the semifinals of Top Alcohol Funny Car at Indy almost every year in her career, did so again this year, but neither of the YNot Pro Mods made the field – not that they didn’t run hard.

Both Jim Whiteley and son Steven ran well down into the 5.80s, but neither Jim’s ’69 Camaro nor Steven’s late model Camaro was quite fast enough to qualify, which at Indy required a 5.85. At the first stop on the NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod tour since Norwalk in June, Jim missed the cut by a hundredth of a second with a 5.86 at 245 mph and Steven fell short by two-hundredths with a 5.87 at 246. Jim wound up 18th on the final qualifying ladder, Steven 20th.

“We got a little greedy,” Steven admitted. “We just bolted the converter back in the week before the race, and that’s not the easiest way to go. [Trans-brake] button racing is nothing new to me – I’m an old Top Sportsman racer – but when you’re racing all the turbo guys and “Stevie Fast” [Jackson] and all these people who’ve been running one all year, it’s kinda tough. We’ll go back to what we know, finish out the year, and go from there.”

TAFC – INDY 2018

September 3, 2018 / Todd Veney

Three-time Indy runner-up Annie Whiteley padded her already gaudy career stats at the U.S. Nationals with yet another late-round finish at the biggest race of the year in 2018. Whiteley, who reached the final round in 2013, 2015, and 2016, and just missed winning it all in ’15, overcame a rough start to reach the semifinals for the sixth time in seven career Indy starts.

“The first runner-up wasn’t that bad – I mean, who really thinks they’re going to beat [Frank] Manzo anyway?” Whiteley asked. “The next one, I barely lost to Andy Bohl, 5.62 to 5.63, and the last one, against Jonnie Lindberg, I smoked the tires right off the line and he slowed way down from what we’d both been running all day.”

This year, Whiteley’s YNot/J&A Camaro broke and stopped on the track on her first qualifying attempt, coasted to a 7.69 at just 127 mph in Q2 on the second, then ran back-to-back 5.57s in Saturday’s third and fourth qualifying sessions to nail down the No. 3 spot. She trounced returning veteran Bob McCosh in the opening round of eliminations, 5.59 to 5.72, and got a measure of revenge on Bohl for the 2015 final in a classic second-round matchup, 5.601 to his right-there 5.607, before bowing out in the semifinals against eventual runner-up Chris Marshall, 5.49 to 5.61.

“I don’t know what it is about this race,” said Whiteley, who ran 5.44, 5.43, and 5.42 here last year and has a career U.S. Nationals win-loss record of 15-7 (.682). “I think some people might make too big of a deal out of it. I just try to treat it like it’s any other race.”

PSM – INDY 2018

September 3, 2018 / Todd Veney

Turning the seat over to Joey Gladstone at the 64th annual U.S. Nationals, former NHRA Rookie of the Year Cory Reed stood back and watched his teammates perform at the biggest race of the year. Reed, who, as a stone rookie, clinched his spot in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs here in 2016, looked on as Gladstone made the field and Angelle Sampey, the 2000-02 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle world champ, bumped in in last-shot qualifying at the last race of the regular season to keep herself in title contention.

Sampey ripped off a clutch 6.94 that nearly vaulted her into the top half of the field, and Gladstone entered eliminations in his Team Liberty debut one spot ahead of her in the No. 10 position after laying down a string of 6.90s. Both were eliminated in the first round, but Reed, who’s suffered through way too many aggravating outings already this year, remains undeterred.

“We still haven’t got it all figured out,” Reed said. “We’ve been locking up the clutch too hard and not keeping the motor freed up enough to drive through it and run like it wants to. We didn’t want to take a bunch of clutch out of it again this time and get too far on the other side of it, and we didn’t.” Facing rookie Mark Paquette in the opening round, Gladstone came out on the wrong end of one of the closest matches of the entire weekend. He and Paquette tore off the line separated by just thousandths of a second, and Gladstone came out on the wrong end of a heartbreaker, 6.968/192 to 6.970/192. They crossed the finish line separated by less than a hundredth of a second. Two pair later, Sampey followed with a similar 6.937/193 that wasn’t quite enough against former world champion Andrew Hines’ 6.880/195.

“We’re getting there,” Reed said, “getting closer and closer all the time. It was actually kind of nice to just be there without all the responsibilities and the stress of racing the bike, trying to get in your zone, and for once just standing back and watching how everybody else was working together. Losing in the first round with both bikes was frustrating because there’s nothing you can do about it, but not riding wasn’t the torture I expected it to be. I’m fine. Both bikes qualified at Indy and things are starting to click.”

TAFC – BRAINERD 2018

August 20, 2018 / Todd Veney

Even a cursory glance at the box score would indicate that Annie Whiteley dominated Top Alcohol Funny Car at the Lucas Oil Nationals – winner, No. 1 qualifier, low E.T., and top speed of the meet. A deeper dive into the round-by-round results shows otherwise: just two representative runs – a 5.56 in last-shot qualifying for the pole position and an identical 5.56 in the final round to overwhelm Jay Payne, who lost the blower belt in low gear.

“We go down the track time after time and don’t win,” Whiteley said. “Here, we only make two good runs all weekend and win the race.” A rare trip over the centerline in the second qualifying session left the YNot team seventh of seven in attendance because she had to shut off early in the opening session. In the final session, a dead ignition on fire-up, a broken blower belt on the burnout, or a broken reverser would’ve been disastrous, but she steamed to a 5.562 that held up all weekend for low e.t.

Because of the odd number of entries, qualifying No. 1 at this race meant a bye run first round, but trouble set in again when massive shake in low gear ended in a shut-off 12-second cruise. Whiteley coasted silently across the finish line at 70 mph and advanced straight to the semifinals, where her car veered for the centerline again, this time with opponent Scott McVey well behind her with a blown-up engine.

“We were a little light on the front end, and when I hit that bump the front end bounced and moved me way over by the centerline,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if I crossed it or not, and if he hadn’t blown up he might’ve gotten around me.” (Ironically, one of the few times she’s ever crossed the centerline came against McVey at this same event in 2015.)

“This had to be the strangest, most stressful win ever, other than maybe Louisiana earlier this year [where the first round essentially was the final because only one other car was in attendance],” Whiteley said. “The whole time, you’re just thinking, ‘Don’t screw this up.’ It was bizarre, but I guess it doesn’t matter. We won.”

PSM – BRAINERD 2018

August 20, 2018 / Todd Veney

There’s no getting around it – the Lucas Oil Nationals was a major disappointment for Cory Reed, probably the low point of the former NHRA Rookie of the Year’s young career. Seventeenth is nowhere to be in a 16-bike field – especially when only 18 teams show up.

“I think our motors were hurt when we got here,” Reed said. “Every run, it felt like the bike wasn’t going anywhere.” It wasn’t. Reed, who has run well down into the 6.80s and was getting used to going rounds in eliminations against even the biggest stars of Pro Stock Motorcycle, fell flat with a 7.14 at just 185 mph Friday afternoon, skipped the Friday night session, and missed the all-6-second field Saturday afternoon with back-to-back 7.0s at 191 mph.

With an aggregate best of 7.040/191.35, Team Liberty fell short of the 6.99 bump spot by a half-tenth. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Reed insisted. “We’ve made progress. We’ve learned things. Ever since Charlotte or Atlanta, it’s looked like we’ve been moving backwards and I guess to a lot of people we have, but a lot of the moves we’ve made have taught us what not to do. And they won’t happen again. I’m OK with everything. It’s not showing up on the race track, I know, but we’re making progress.”

TAFC – SEATTLE 2018

August 6, 2018 / Todd Veney

Perennial Top 5 driver Annie Whiteley, who won three times and reached at least the semifinals six straight times to open the season, fell in the first round for the third time in four races when traction problems set in at the Northwest Nationals. A winner in Belle Rose and Denver on the regional trail and in Charlotte on the national tour, she qualified a season-low sixth in Seattle despite an excellent 5.52, then barely made it to the Christmas Tree in the first round before she had to lift.

After an aborted 9.73 at 90 mph on her first of just two qualifying attempts for this race, Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Yenko Camaro tiptoed off the starting line with a relatively tame .970 60-foot time in last-shot qualifying, charged through the middle of the course, flew through the half-track clocks at more than 212 mph, and clocked a 5.52 at just short of 270 mph. It moved her from the last spot in the field to the middle of the pack and set up a tough first-round match with Alaska’s Ray Martin, driver of 2014 world champ Steve Harker’s “International Incident” Camaro.

Whiteley was off like a shot with one of her best reaction times of the season, .048, but was out of it early when Martin, who last year won in his Top Alcohol Funny Car debut just as Whiteley had in her 2012 rookie season, negotiated the quarter-mile with a shake-free 5.57. She tromped back on the throttle and chase but clicked it off in high gear when it was clear that she wouldn’t be getting around Martin and coasted to a disappointing 6.33 at 216 mph. “I have no idea why the car would do something that,” said Whiteley, a past finalist at this event. “It’s not like the guys were trying anything crazy – we qualified in the fast half and had lane choice. It just goes to show that with these cars, you never know.”

PSM – DENVER 2018

July 23, 2018 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed got quicker and faster every time down the track at the Mile-High Nationals and entered the first round solidly in the top half of the field, primed for a long run in eliminations. Then his bike bogged right off the line and Steve Johnson, who’d never beaten him, disappeared into the distance for an easy 7.29-7.41 win.

“I left, and the bike didn’t go anywhere, just kind of went ‘buhhhhh…’ ” Reed lamented. “It took off to the right, really hard. I wasn’t even looking through the windshield anymore to see where I was going. I got on the limiter – the shift light was on for a while as I tried to keep from running into the wall – and I had to double-hit the button to get into 4th gear. No way you’re going to win with a run like that.”

Reed’s disappointment was compounded when every rider he would have faced in the ensuring rounds ran slower than what he’d been running. Qualifying No. 8, as Reed did at this event, almost inevitably leads to a second-round loss to the No. 1 qualifier, but this time No. 1 Eddie Krawiec was upset by the slowest rider in the field, No. 16 Karen Stoffer, and never made it to the second round. “I wouldn’t have had to run 7-teens to win here,” Reed said. “7.20s like we ran Saturday would have been enough. Karen only ran another a 7.34 in the second round [when he would have raced her] and Jerry Savoie only went a 7.28 against her in the semi’s – another ‘gimme’ race. Both guys red-lighted in the final, so no matter what I ran, I would’ve won.”

Until the first-round letdown, Reed’s Team Liberty Buell was improving every time he rolled out from under the tower, from a 7.53/180 to a 7.41/182 to a 7.25/184 to a 7.23/184 in last-shot qualifying that carried him into the top half of the program. “We kinda screwed ourselves on the first two runs, then put in a clutch on Saturday like we ran with Star Racing [in his 2016 Rookie of the Year campaign] and it showed a lot of promise,” Reed said. “Our 60-foot time was better than anyone’s. That’s where we belong – that’s Ken [Johnson’s] specialty – but for some reason, the damn thing bogged again Sunday morning. No idea why it would fall on its face like that, but the more the rounds went on, the more frustrated I got.”